


My Suitor, My Soldier

by BonitaBreezy



Series: My Love to Thee is Sound [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Complete, Established Relationship, M/M, Oneshot, PTSD, Phil's pretty fucked up, They Make It Work, Very Minor Character Death, War in Afghanistan, but Clint is too, there's a some mention of violence and death, they're actually strangely functional all things considered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonitaBreezy/pseuds/BonitaBreezy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint finds a Purple Heart in Phil's bedside drawer and discovers that there's more to Phil's past than he had thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Suitor, My Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> There were questions about why Phil carried a gun all the time, and also some about looking for some Phil back story, so I got to thinking a lot about it. So here's a small view into some of Phil's history.  
> The title of this fic was, once again, thought up by Kisleth. I'd truly be lost without her. She also beta'd the two-thirds of this fic. Sadly, the last third remains unbeta'd because she had to go be a real person in the offline world before I finished writing it and I got impatient. So anything after that general point is totally my bad. The series title is from Shakespeare's Love's Labor Lost.

When Clint woke up, he was alone.  That wasn’t completely unusual, but generally when he woke up in Phil’s bed in Phil’s apartment, he could at least hear his boyfriend moving around in the bathroom or making breakfast in the kitchen.  Today, the apartment was silent, and Clint wondered if he’d overslept enough that Phil had already gone back down for the second morning rush.  He flopped over onto his stomach and reached for his phone on the bedside table.  It was hardly past eight, and there was a text message from Phil waiting for him.  The buzzing must have been what woke him up in the first place.

_“I was really craving bacon but I was out so I ran to the store to get some.  Anything you want/need? Also: how are we on lube?”_

Clint snorted at the text, which was just so typically Phil.  For someone so organized and competent, he could, at times, be a bit scatterbrained.  Conversations sometimes took a swing for the unexpected.  He rolled over again until he could reach the drawer to the table on Phil’s side of the bed.  A quick dig through the drawer showed that lube was less than a quarter full, even though Clint was fairly sure he’d just bought that bottle a week ago.

 _“I don’t need anything.  Almost out of lube.”_ He shot the text back quickly and tossed the lube back into the drawer.  He happened to glance down, as he was pushing the drawer closed, and saw a black jewelry box resting unobtrusively in the corner.  For a moment, his breath caught in his throat and he felt some panic in his chest.  Clint was absolutely in love with Phil, but they’d only been dating for a few months, and the idea of marriage at all made him sick with nerves.  He wasn’t sure that he was the kind of person who could ever actually be married and not fuck it up.

It took a few minutes of panic before he noticed that the box wasn’t traditionally ring-sized.  It was thinner and longer, more like something for a necklace than a ring.  Despite his foreboding, he picked up the box and popped it open.  A rush of relieved breath escaped him when he opened it and didn’t see a ring.  A moment later, though, he realized what he was looking at, and it raised a ton of different questions in his brain.  Nestled on a white silk pad was a purple ribbon attached to a golden disk of heart-shaped metal with a purple face and the profile of a man on it.  He’d never actually seen one before, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was looking at a Purple Heart.  He ran a finger over the face of the cool metal, his mind racing, and he almost jumped out of his skin in surprise when his phone chimed.  It was a message from Natasha, asking if he was coming home that night.  He sent her a question mark as an answer and turned his attention back to the medal.  He wasn’t sure if Phil had been trying to keep it hidden or what, but he did know that he hadn’t known Phil had ever been in the military.

Considering the fact that his boyfriend always had a gun on him unless he was naked, it kind of made sense, but Clint wondered why Phil had never mentioned it.  If he had something like a Purple Heart, why was it shoved away in a drawer?  He considered snapping the box shut, putting it away, and pretending that he’d never seen it, but in the end, he was really curious.  He left the box open and on the bed while he went to take a shower.  If Phil was back when he came out and had put it away and didn’t say anything about it, he would know not to press.

His shower was quick and hot, because he knew that Phil would want to get back down to the shop by 8:45 at the latest, and he wanted to have time to enjoy breakfast with his boyfriend.  When he came out of the bathroom, the box was still sitting on the bed exactly where he’d left it, and he could hear sizzling grease and smell bacon.  Phil apparently hadn’t even come into the bedroom at all.

He entered the kitchen wearing only a pair of purple boxer briefs, making a beeline for Phil.  Clint latched onto his boyfriend, pressing his chest against Phil’s back and wrapping one arm around his waist, while the other stretched out to snatch a piece of bacon from the paper towel next to the stove.  He could feel the hardness of Phil’s gun between them, placed, as usual, at the small of his back, and Clint knew it took a lot of trust on Phil’s part to let Clint get in the way of a quick draw.  It made him want to bring up the Purple Heart again, but he held his tongue.  There might be a very good reason that Phil hadn’t said anything, and Clint knew he shouldn’t push.

“You’re a menace,” Phil informed him, and Clint hummed happily in response, too focused on the salty taste of bacon exploding across his tongue to try and form words.  When he finished his piece of bacon, he wrapped his other arm around Phil’s waist and stroked his fingers over the fabric of Phil’s soft sweater.  After years of pining, he still sometimes found it hard to believe that he was allowed to touch and kiss Phil whenever he wanted, and he liked to take advantage of it.

“You better not be getting bacon grease on me,” Phil’s voice was stern, but Clint could see the way his eyes crinkled up in amusement and he could feel the way that Phil leaned his weight back against Clint’s front.

“I know better than to mess up the clothes,” Clint retorted, pressing a dry kiss to Phil’s jaw line and then pulling away so that Phil could focus on cooking the rest of the bacon.  Phil was very particular about his clothes.  It could actually be kind of annoying sometimes, when Clint just wanted to strip and get down to business and Phil insisted on hanging things up, but mostly it was cute and endearing.  Natasha had seemed to think, between herself and Phil, that Clint might actually start caring about his clothes, but so far she had been disappointed.  He was perfectly willing to dress up in what they told him to, most of the time, but left to his own devices, Clint was a t-shirt, jeans, and boots guy all the way.  At home, he wore less than that, if he could get away with it.

“Aren’t you cold?” Phil demanded as he turned around, a bowl of scrambled eggs with cheese and peppers that he’d been keeping warm in the oven in one hand and the plate of bacon in the other.  He settled in the chair next to Clint’s and set the dishes down between them, offering Clint a fork.  Clint liked how easily Phil had made room for Clint in his life.  He’d cleared out two drawers and part of the closet (of the two of them, Phil easily had more clothes) and had bought Clint a nice fluffy pillow after he’d mentioned one morning that Phil’s were too flat and made his neck ache.  When they ate together in Phil’s apartment, they often sat close enough together that their knees brushed, and some days, like today, they ate off of one plate together.  It was sweet, and to Clint it felt extremely intimate.

“I’m not cold,” Clint said, though he actually was a little chilly.  It was April, and April in New York meant it was still pretty cold.  But he liked the way Phil’s eyes got dark when he looked at him like this, so it was a small sacrifice to make.

“Sure you’re not,” Phil responded dryly, reaching out and flicking one of Clint’s erect nipples.  Clint whined at him, turning away and cupping a hand over his abused flesh.

“See if I ever dress up for you again,” he retorted, even though they both knew that he would if Phil asked.

“I would hardly call sitting around in your underwear dressing up,” Phil snorted, punctuating his statement by biting a bacon strip in half.

“Baby, I look amazing in my underwear,” Clint informed him, flexing his arms theatrically.

“You do,” Phil agreed, and he received a kiss in reward. “But really, please get dressed before you come down to work.”

“Your profits could only increase with me serving coffee while being mostly naked,” Clint insisted, shoving a bite of eggs into his mouth.  The peppers crunched and flooded his mouth with flavor, and once again he was struck by the thought that he could never, ever, let Phil leave him, if only for the food.

“Maybe,” Phil said his eyes roaming over Clint’s body with a lingering sweep. “But I don’t like to share.”  He broke off his suggestive gaze and went back to eating like nothing had even happened, and it took a lot of Clint’s self control not to drag him back to bed.  He knew Phil wouldn’t thank him for making him late.

They ate quickly and mostly quietly then, their fingers laced together in Phil’s lap, and it wasn’t long before Phil excused himself to go downstairs so he could pull whatever he had baking from the oven.  Clint finished up the bacon slowly and then got dressed before he headed downstairs to help Phil set up.  He wore one of Phil’ shirts, a white button-up that was actually a little tight around his shoulders.  The look on Phil’s face when he noticed was definitely worth it, though.

They drank coffee and slipped around each other with practiced ease, restocking and getting ready for the second morning rush until nine o'clock came along.  In his months at working at Uncommon Grounds, Clint had gotten pretty good at making the regular orders.  There were only a few things that he still didn’t really know how to make, but he was never in the shop alone so it wasn’t really a problem.  He and Phil worked efficiently together, taking orders and making coffees like a well-oiled machine.  Sometimes Phil ducked into the back to switch things in and out of the oven or bring more pastries to the front, and sometimes Clint went out to collect empty coffee mugs to throw in the dishwasher, but the line never lagged for too long.  As usual, he worked his shift until Darcy came in, and then he rushed upstairs to grab his bag and Phil’s laptop.

“Heading to class?” Phil asked as he came back down the stairs and into the shop.

“Yeah,” Clint said. “I took your laptop, okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Phil popped the lid on a disposable coffee cup and passed it to a customer. “Are you coming back tonight?”

“Not sure,” Clint answered. “Nat was asking after me earlier so I’m gonna call her and find out if she wanted anything.  But I’ll definitely be by after class to drop your laptop off again, so I’ll let you know then, okay?”

“Sounds good.  Love you.”  Phil had already started taking the next customer’s order when he said it, so Clint didn’t feel bad about shouting his own affections over his shoulder on the way out the door.  He was actually running a bit late, and he hated trying to find a seat after the class had already started.  He ran half way there, and by the time he took his seat twenty minutes later, he’d forgotten about the Purple Heart entirely.

* * *

 

“I get that you’re finally getting laid for the first time in like, forever, but are you ever actually coming home?” Natasha asked when Clint answered his phone after class.

“Well, it’s easy for you, isn’t it? Your boyfriend is live-in.  I don’t get to see mine twenty-four-seven,” Clint retorted, zipping up his coat against the cool night air.

“Yeah, well, it’s not as magical as you might think.  I’ll have you know that James snores louder than you do.  And he’s a blanket hog.”

“Oh no,” Clint deadpanned. “Snoring and blanket hogging.  That’s certainly a deal breaker.”

“Well, it might have been,” Natasha conceded. “Except we reached an agreement: if I have to wake him up twice in the middle of the night because he’s too loud, I get to ride his face before he goes back to sleep.”

“Ugh, Nat, gross.  I really don’t need to know about fun kinky sex times with you and Bucky,” Clint groaned while Natasha laughed.

“It is fun,” she agreed. “But anyway, are you coming home tonight or not? We might start renting your room out to someone else if we don’t see you around soon.”

“I could come back tonight, I guess,” Clint said. “Did you guys have something planned?”

“We were gonna queue up _Arrested Development_ on Netflix and order a pizza.” Natasha’s voice sounded like she knew that their plans seemed pretty lame, but at the same time her voice held a wheedling quality.

“Well…” Clint said, thinking longingly of how nice it felt to sleep with Phil curled up against his back.

“Steve misses you,” Natasha added like an afterthought, which Clint knew meant that she missed him and didn’t want to admit it.

“Yeah, okay,” He said. “I’ve been kind of neglectful of Steve lately, I guess.”

“Damn straight.  Call us when you’re on the way so we can order the pizza.”

“Okay. I’ve got to drop by Phil’s first though.  He’s been letting me use his laptop.”

“Oh, by the way, Bucky just bought one of those Surface tablet things,” Natasha said. “He said you could have his old laptop.”  Clint knew that code, too.  It meant that Natasha had bought Bucky the Surface tablet thing so that she would have an excuse to give him the laptop that Bucky had bought less than a year ago.  They’d all been treating him with kid gloves ever since all the shit with Barney had gone down over Christmas, and it simultaneously annoyed him and made him feel like this shittiest person in the world.

“Nat, why would he just give it to me when he could sell it online for at least two hundred bucks?” Clint demanded, and Natasha was quiet for a minute.

“Clint, he doesn’t need the extra money…”

“Not even to replace anything that my brother stole from him or you, or to go towards the thousand of dollars in jewelry that I lost you?” Clint asked, feeling defensive. He realized that Natasha and Bucky were trying to do something nice for him; he definitely couldn’t afford a laptop at the moment, new or used, and it would really be nice to get a relatively new one for free.  But he hated feeling like a charity case.

“Clint,” she said, and her voice was no-nonsense. “We’ve been over this.  It wasn’t your fault and we don’t blame you.  Bucky doesn’t want to go through the trouble of selling his laptop.  You can take it or it can sit in our bedroom and go to waste.”

Clint sighed heavily and did some quick math in his head. “I’ll give him two hundred bucks for it.  But I’ll have to pay in installments, over a few months.”  He’d be able to afford around twenty-five dollars every paycheck if he didn’t treat himself to take out once a week anymore.

“Clint…” Natasha started to protest, but Clint interrupted her.

“I’m gonna pay for it, Nat,” he said, hoping that she understood he wasn’t joking around.  She was quiet for a long minute, and then she sighed heavily.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let Bucky know.”

“Great,” he said, feeling kind of proud of himself for convincing her. “I’ll see you later, Nat.”

“Yeah, see you.”  

He reached Uncommon Grounds a few minutes later, and he breathed in the wonderful smell of coffee and baked goods.  It smelled liked home and Phil and happiness, and he loved it.

“Hey!” Phil said from where he sat behind the counter.  The place was pretty much empty, hosting only three teenagers in one corner and a woman sitting in one of the plush chairs near the counter reading a novel and sipping a latte. “How was class?”

“It was all right,” Clint said with a shrug. “We were talking about molecular electronics today, which was pretty interesting, but very technical, you know?”

“Sounds like it,” Phil said. “You know I don’t know anything about physics except that gravity keeps us on the ground.”

“Yeah, I know,” Clint snorted and leaned across the counter to kiss his boyfriend.  Phil hummed happily at him , holding him close with a hand at the back of his neck.

“It’s basically using the building blocks of molecules to create electronic components.  Nanotech,” Clint explained, and Phil nodded with a small smile on his face.

“You’re so cute when you talk about things I don’t understand,” he simpered, and Clint couldn’t hold back his grin.

“You’re such a jerk,” Clint said.

“I know,” Phil sighed. “I battle with it every day.”

Clint stuck his tongue out, pulling back quickly when Phil made a grab for it.  He just barely managed to avoid Phil’s fingers.

“Anyway, I guess I’m going home tonight,” Clint said. “Natasha called and all but told me that she misses me.  Oh, and also, Bucky is selling me his laptop.  So I’ll be able to stop hogging yours.”

“Oh good, candy crush is probably feeling severely neglected,” Phil said dryly.  After a moment, though his face shifted to concern. “Are you gonna be able to afford it? Do you want me to…?”

“No, Phil,” Clint answered quickly, and maybe a bit harshly, if the way Phil leaned back a bit was any indication. He tried again, a bit more gently. “Thank you, but no.  You’re already helping me out with the school thing so much right now.  I can handle paying for a computer.  I’m not totally helpless.”

“I know you’re not,” Phil answered just as gently. “I just...I know you’ve been having trouble with money. I want to help you when you need it.”

“I love you for that, I really do,” Clint said, and he really did appreciate it even if it simultaneously made him feel kind of shitty. “But I can do this on my own.  I have to be able to do some of this on my own.”

“Okay,” Phil said, after he spent a long moment staring at Clint like maybe that would make him reveal all his secrets. “I’m glad this is working out for you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Clint sighed, pulling Phil’s computer out of his bag and setting it on the countertop. “Anyway, here’s your laptop.  I’m gonna go home before I can’t convince myself to leave you.”

“Sounds good to me.” Phil’s eyes sparkled a bit mischievously, but Clint shook his head with a smile.

“I promised Nat.  I’ll be back in the morning for my shift.”

“Gonna miss you next to me tonight, though,” Phil sighed, leaning forward for one more kiss.

“I know, I’ll miss you too.  But, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that clichéd nonsense.”  Clint pulled away from Phil and headed towards the door before he could convince himself to stay.  He sent Phil one last wave before he pushed his way out the door and headed towards home.  He fired off a text to Natasha and then shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind.  He still wanted to just turn around and go back to Phil, and he suddenly realized that he hadn’t slept in his own bed in almost a month.  He really had been neglecting his friends, and suddenly a night of pizza and TV seemed like an amazing idea.

* * *

 

When Clint let himself in the door at Uncommon Grounds the next morning, Phil was leaning against the counter staring into space.  Usually he was a flurry of motion in the morning, making sure everything was stocked and preparing trays of various doughs and batters to be popped into the oven throughout the day so they wouldn’t run out of baked goods during the rushes.  Clint could see even from the doorway that the sugar canister on the table for quick carry-out use was half empty and that they were almost out of small disposable cups.  It really wasn’t like Phil to ignore those kinds of things.

“Hey,” Clint said, and Phil jumped, his hand going to the gun at the small of his back before he realized it was Clint talking.  Phil sighed and moved his hand away from his weapon and raised it to his face to rub at his eyelids. “Hey are you okay?” Clint asked, concerned.

“I didn’t sleep well,” Phil admitted. “I, uh.  I saw what you left on my bed.”

The Purple Heart had actually completely slipped Clint’s mind, but now that Phil mentioned it, he didn’t know how he could have forgotten.  Looking at Phil now, he was starting to feel guilty.  Phil looked wrecked.  His skin was pale and he had huge bags under his eyes, like he’d been up all night.  Even worse, those kind, beautiful eyes looked haunted and wary.  Clint wished he could go back to the previous morning and shove that box back in the drawer.

Instead, Clint crossed the floor in a few quick steps and wrapped his arms around Phil’s middle.  He pulled his boyfriend close, and Phil sighed quietly like it was a relief and immediately leaned his weight against Clint.  He didn’t hug back, but the way he pressed his face into Clint’s neck assured Clint that Phil wasn’t angry with him.

“I’m sorry if I brought up bad memories for you,” Clint said after a few minutes. “I thought leaving it out for you to decide if you wanted to discuss it would be the best course of action.  I just...I found it in your drawer when I was looking for the lube yesterday and I got curious. I wasn’t trying to snoop or anything.  You don’t have to tell me about it, if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t like thinking about it,” Phil admitted. “But I can talk about it, now. And I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”

“I don’t either,” Clint admitted. “And honestly, I’m kind of dying to know.” Phil huffed a laugh at that. “But I don’t want you to tell me if you’re not ready to.”

“I appreciate that,” Phil answered honestly. His face was still pressed into Clint’s neck, and his voice was a little muffled, but not to the point that Clint couldn’t understand.  The absolute last thing he wanted to do was push Phil away right now, even if only to hear him better. “But I do want to tell you.  It’s not a very long story, but it kind of explains a bit about me, I think.  I want you to know me.  All the way.”

“Okay,” Clint agreed. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”  He knew how hard it could be, to talk about a past that had been left behind.  It had taken him a long time to work up the courage to talk to anyone about Barney and Buck.  Like, if he just didn’t say anything, it wouldn’t actually be real and he could pretend it hadn’t happened.

“I’m sure,” Phil said. “Will you stay tonight?  We can talk about it then.”

“Of course,” Clint answered, rubbing a hand up and down Phil’s spine. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed you, too,” Phil said. “It was part of the reason why I couldn’t sleep.  I can usually push those memories away enough to sleep, when you’re next to me.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Clint answered honestly. “I’m going to call Darcy and see if she can come in, okay?  You go upstairs, lay down, and try to sleep.  After the second rush I’ll come up and see if you’re awake, and if you are I’ll lay with you until you fall asleep, okay?” He’d have to be down for the lunch rush at eleven, but he was fairly positive that Phil was so tired it would take him less than half an hour to fall asleep.

It was evidence of how very tired Phil must have been when he didn’t even argue.  He just nodded and pulled out of Clint’s arms slowly.  Clint was equally reluctant to let Phil go, feeling weirdly protective over him, but keeping a hold of him wasn’t really conducive to Phil lying down and getting rest, so he let Phil pull away from him and head towards the door that led up to his apartment.  Phil wasn’t even on the first step before Clint was calling Darcy.  The second morning rush would start any minute, and he knew he’d need her help.

Luckily Darcy was available, and she made it to the shop in record time.  Darcy was a good worker, and she didn’t even question it when Clint told her that Phil was feeling under the weather, even though Phil was the kind of person who would try to work even if he had the bubonic plague.  She didn’t even complain about cleaning up and restocking by herself when Clint went up to check on Phil during the lull between the rushes.  

Phil was curled up on his side in bed, his arms wrapped around Clint’s pillow when he got up there.  He startled when Clint opened the door to his bedroom, and Clint wondered if he’d gotten any sleep in the past few hours at all.

“Hey,” Clint said softly, leaving the door open.  He kicked off his shoes as he crossed the floor and climbed into bed behind Phil, scooting close and wrapping an arm around Phil’s waist.  Phil sighed quietly and pressed back against him. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Not really,” Phil said.  He took a hold of Clint's hand. "Bed felt too big.”

“Well, I’m here now.” Clint pressed a kiss to Phil’s shoulder, trying not to feel touched at the fact that Phil was having trouble sleeping without him.  That wasn’t actually a good thing. “I’ll stay here until the lunch rush, okay?”

“Okay,” Phil murmured.  It didn’t take long for him to drift to sleep, and by the time Clint pulled away from him to head back downstairs, Phil had relaxed completely and was snoring softly.  Clint could only hope that he would stay deeply asleep for a few hours.

* * *

 

By the time 9:30 rolled around, Phil still hadn't made an appearance, and Clint was starting to worry that he wouldn't be able to sleep through the night.  Darcy helped him get everything cleaned up and put away before she went, but Clint was still really relieved to lock the door behind her, turn off the lights, and head upstairs. He was surprised to find Phil sitting on the couch with a mug of tea clutched in his hands and _Cupcake Wars_ on the TV.  Phil wasn't a micromanager, but he did like to be involved in the shop. He must have been feeling pretty shitty if he hadn't come down as soon as he was awake.

"Hey," Clint said after he'd locked the front door and kicked his shoes off. "You feeling okay?"

"Woke up at five," Phil admitted. "But I just didn't really feel up to coming downstairs. I'm sorry I was so useless today."

"Hey, it's all right." Clint sunk down onto the couch next to Phil and gently tugged at his arm until Phil took the hint and shifted to lean against him. "Darcy and I had it all taken care of, I promise. You've trained us well."

"I know I did," Phil mumbled. "You want to turn the TV off for me? I'd prefer not to have any distractions while we talk about this."

"We don't have to talk right now," Clint said, grabbing the remote from the arm of the couch and flipping the TV off. "Not if you don't feel up to it."

"No," Phil said quickly. "I've been talking myself up for hours about this, so I'd prefer to do it now. If you're not too tired."

"Okay.  Whenever you're ready." Clint settled back more comfortably against the cushions and wrapped his arm around Phil's shoulders. He hoped it would make Phil feel secure, rather than trapped.

Phil was quiet for a long minute, and then, when Clint thought he was about to speak, he took a deep drink from his mug instead. Clint didn't say anything, even though he was dying to. He'd let Phil talk in his own time.

"I joined the army right after I graduated high school," Phil said. "I was one of those kids who didn't know what to do with themselves and the military seemed like a good choice. Everyone always talked about how great the benefits were, and how great the army could be for a career. I thought it would be great for me. And it was, for a while.  I was good at following orders, and I was a good soldier.  I was trusted by my superior officers and I was getting more responsibilities and leadership roles.  I was put on the fast track to rise in the ranks, and then 9/11 happened and suddenly a bunch of us were being shipped out to Afghanistan.”  Phil stopped again for another minute, not like he was having trouble talking, but more like he was trying to think of what to say next.  He looked tired and beat, and he kept staring down into his mug like he was expecting his tea to reveal the secrets of the universe to him.

“I was excited about Afghanistan at first.  It was my first time leaving the country, and I didn’t really understand war like I thought I did.  I was twenty-two and I thought I was invincible.  It was going to be glamorous, you know?  Fighting the bad guys to make the world safe for freedom and all that.  At first, it wasn’t so bad.  I mean, yeah, people died, but that was war.  But after a while, I realized all the glamour was gone.  It was hot all the time, good guys I knew who were so young were dead, I got really resentful of the locals and how different they were from me.  I knew it was stupid, too, because of course they would be different, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how they were so strange and why couldn’t they just be normal?  But knowing it was stupid and still feeling that way just made me even more frustrated.  I was sick of the sirens and having to go to the top of a damn mountain so we could get reception on the satellite phone to call home for maybe five minutes.” Phil’s voice was bitter, and his knuckles were white around the edge of his mug.  Clint was tempted to interrupt, to take the mug, anything to get that haunted look of Phil’s face, but he knew Phil wouldn’t appreciate that.  He said he wanted Clint to know, so Clint would listen.

“I was sick of being covered in dust and eating MREs and constantly wearing a ton of gear and being so paranoid that anyone on the street could be about to kill me,” Phil continued, his eyes closing tightly for a second before opening up once more.  “Little kids might have bombs strapped to their chests, that random car down the street could blow at any moment.  Everything was a danger and nothing was safe and it was really starting to get to me.  I did my best to not let it interfere with what I was doing there.  I was a good soldier.  I did what I was told and I did it well.  I shot people if they got too close after they were told to back up, because it was them or me and my unit, and I wasn’t willing to take the chance.  They could have been innocent, scared or disoriented, but I shot them on the off chance that they might mean harm.  And the thing is, even now, I don’t really feel bad about it.  Every choice had the potential to be a fatal one, and if I had to choose between us or them, I always chose us.  It probably sounds heartless, but that’s how it is.”

Phil stopped again for a moment, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again.  He closed his eyes, shook his head, and then, a moment later opened them again and continued to speak. “I was about three months from the end of my deployment when the bombing happened.  I still don’t really know how they got past the people on guard.  There was a whole investigation about it, but at the time I really couldn’t be bothered to care, and since then I’ve never really felt up to looking in to it.  I think I just don’t really want to know.  It wasn’t like a ton of people flooded through the defenses or anything. I’m pretty sure it was just a few men.  No one even knew they were there until the bombs went off.”

Clint sucked in a breath, feeling panicked at the idea of Phil being anywhere near an exploding bomb, but he forced himself to calm down.  Obviously Phil was okay.  That didn’t make it any easier to hear, though.

“I was sleeping when it happened.  There were bombs planted in the barracks, and honestly, it’s a damn miracle that I didn’t get killed.  I just got lucky, and the explosive that was planted near my bed was a dud and didn’t go off when it was supposed to.  They rest all went off at the same time, and it was insanity.  I woke up and my ears were ringing and people were yelling and screaming and everything was on fire.  There were bits of bodies everywhere, and some men had had whole parts of them blown off but they were still alive and screaming.  There were only two doors out of the barracks, on either side, and the one had been blocked off when part of the building collapsed.  

“We did our best to find anyone who was still alive and carry them out, but everything seemed distorted and crazy.  A lot of guys were dead, but I saw one of my friends, Jasper, and he was alive, but one of his legs were gone and he couldn’t walk.  And I had to try to help him, so I went back to try and carry him out, and just as I was getting out the door, the last bomb finally went off.  I don’t know if they just set the timer wrong, or what, but it went off.  The shock threw us forward and out, and I took a bunch of shrapnel to the back and neck. Some of it came really close to severing my spine, but I guess I was just having a really lucky day." Phil scoffed at that, sounding bitter.  Clint had seen the small white scars littering Phil’s back and neck before, of course, but he’d never known where they came from.  He’d never asked because Phil seemed to pretend that they didn’t exist, and he hadn’t wanted to rock the boat after he’d finally gotten what he wanted after so long.

"Jasper died from blood loss, and I was pretty messed up, both physically and mentally,” Phil continued. “I spent a few days in the hospital, but it was pretty clear that some of my motor skills were fucked up from the shrapnel.  I wasn’t useful anymore, so I got a Purple Heart, an honorable discharge, and a ton of paperwork so I could start filing for physical therapy through the VA.”

Clint could see Phil’s fingers tightening around his cup again, flexing and relaxing like he was trying to prove to himself that they still worked.  He’d never seen any evidence of motor dysfunction in Phil, so he assumed it all must have healed up pretty well, but all the work that had gone into returning that function must have been really difficult.  Phil’s face was blank with his memories and Clint couldn’t help himself anymore.  He reached out with his other arm and pulled the rest of Phil’s body against his own, not even caring when Phil’s now lukewarm tea sloshed over the edge of his mug and landed in Clint’s lap.  He could feel Phil trembling slightly, so he squeezed just a bit tighter, resting his cheek on the top of Phil’s head and letting him shake and gasp for a few minutes.  He wasn’t crying, but he was definitely overcome with what Clint was sure was a multitude of emotions.

“I lived with my parents for a while after I got back,” Phil said after a few more minutes. “I was going through PT and regular therapy and I just wasn’t functioning like a person very well.  But eventually I started to deal with the PTSD and my body started obeying me the way it was supposed to again, and I picked myself up and used the GI Bill to go back to school.  And, I guess, you know what happened from there.  I still have nightmares sometimes, and obviously I’m still a bit paranoid because I don’t feel comfortable unless I have a gun nearby.  But, you know, for the most part I’m okay.  I’ve got a good life, I’ve got an amazing boyfriend.  I’m okay.”

“I know you are,” Clint reassured him. “You’re great.  You moved past a horrible thing and made a new life for yourself and I’m really proud of you.”

Phil smiled weakly up at him, but he didn’t look entirely convinced.  Clint could understand that.  He had an equally difficult time believing it when Phil said things like that to him, so he would just have to follow Phil’s example and trying to prove it to him in their daily lives.

“I don’t usually keep that medal in my bedside table, by the way,” Phil said after a few minutes. “I got an email from one of the guys in my unit about a month ago.  He’s a professor now, and he wanted me to come in and give his class a talk on my personal experience in the war.  I got it out to see if I could even handle looking at it without feeling like shit.”

“I guess that didn’t go very well, did it?” Clint asked, and Phil huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, clearly not.  I’d actually kind of put it out of my mind again when you pulled it out.  Don’t apologize.” Phil cut Clint off before he could even open his mouth. “I don’t like thinking about it, but I’m glad that you know now.  But that’s why it was there.”

“Are you going to attend his lecture?” Clint asked.  Part of him felt like he should encourage it, like maybe it would help, but he knew he couldn’t push it if Phil didn’t feel up to it.  That would only make it worse.

“No, definitely not,” Phil said. “I’ll have to call Ward tomorrow and let him know I can’t do it.  I’m not ready for that.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to tell a whole room full of strangers about it.”

“Yeah,” Clint said.  He knew that feeling intimately. “I understand.  You aren’t a coward for not wanting to talk about it.  I hope you know that.”

“Some days I believe that,” Phil said.

It wasn’t the answer Clint wanted to hear, but he understood that it was the only answer that Phil had.  Things like war left a mark, physical and mental, and Clint knew that Phil would carry those marks for the rest of his life.  He was prepared to deal with them and prepared to help Phil with them, and so far it seemed like Phil was willing to let him help.

Maybe one day the marks wouldn’t hurt anymore, but until then, Clint was willing hold Phil up when the pain got to be too much.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Before I get any questions, yes, I KNOW that there's no explanation as to why Clint is back in school when clearly Courted by a Carol ended without solving that particular issue. There will be another oneshot at some point covering what happened between the end of Courted and the beginning of this fic that will explain how he is in school now. So don't come whining to me about continuity, there is a method to my madness.


End file.
